Monday, Nov. 21 USA vs. Wales/Scotland/Ukraine, TBD Friday, Nov. 25 England vs. USA, TBD Tuesday, Nov. 29 Iran vs. USA, TBD I don’t like England second - that’s the game where we might want to rotate a tad. On the other hand - perhaps we prioritize stronger lineups against weaker teams. I partly want Wales but Bale is most likely to be freshest in the first game.
Likely the latter two slots. We play on the same day as Ecuador, Qatar, Netherlands, and Senegal so their games can afford to be earlier. We know for sure we won't get the early slot for the first day.
You can bet USA England is at 7am so Fox can use it as a lead into to all the college football games which start at 11am CST.
The game is on a Friday not Saturday. There are some CFB games on Friday but it's a pretty thin slate. Especially the games that Fox would have access to. There's Nebraska/Iowa and then 3 Pac 12 games that they probably don't want to put that early anyway
Fantastic News Just in: FIFA confirms that all three #USMNT group stage games will kick off at 2 p.m. Eastern - that's 11 a.m. Pacific, 10 p.m. local time in Qatar.A gift for U.S. fans, and especially for Fox and Telemundo. https://t.co/GXyliVWgn4— Jonathan Tannenwald (@thegoalkeeper) April 1, 2022
I just don't want Ukraine. There will be enough drama in this group without the added drama of playing the team that will have the world's sympathy.
If it isn't, then Fox is REALLY leaving money on the table. They should be promoting the hell out of this on their main network from now until November.
On another hand it's interesting to see how the kids progressed after the meet at 2019 U-20 WC. We've had Dest, Weah, Richards, McKenzie, KDLF, bunch of solid players and a few traitors. Surprisingly no players from Ukrainian team that won U-20 WC, are on the roster, even Lunin who was amazing back than, but isn't able to get any time for Real. Even more surprising they do have the same coach as that U-20 team, the guy who never even played 1st league soccer after starring on my high school team.
I just found this: https://www.sportingnews.com/us/soc...edule-fixtures-times/acptybvjxmt2t8vvxqaiojan Crib notes: Mon, Nov 21, 8am ET: England vs Iran @ Khalifa Int'l Stadium Mon, Nov 21, 2pm ET: USA vs WAL/SCO/UKR @ Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium Fri, Nov 25, 5am ET: Iran vs WAL/SCO/UKR @ Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium Fri, Nov 25, 2pm ET: USA vs England @ Al Bayt Stadium Tues, Nov 29, 2pm ET: England vs WAL/SCO/UKR @ Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium Tues, Nov 29, 2pm ET: USA vs Iran @ Al Thumama Stadium
I would think Ecuador would get the other later slot each of those days as another western hemisphere team. Would make the most sense I would think to have teams from the Americas in the later slots but they may also try to get games in prime time for Europe for some teams.
10 PM start time! Glad we got a crap ton of teenagers and college age kids on this team. Thats the time they start to think about going out!
I don't really know anything about this Iranian team, so I just looked up the XI players that started the most games for them in their final round of qualifying. They are as follows: GK: Beiranvand - Boavista (Portuguese Primera) RB: Moharrami - Dinamo Zagreb (Croatia) CB: Kanaanizadegan - Al Ahli Doha (Qatar) CB: Khalilzadeh - Al-Rayyan (Qatar) LB: Noorafkan - Sepahan (Iran) CM: Ezatolahi - Al-Gharafa (Qatar), on loan from Vejle (Danish Superliga) CM: Nourollahi - Shabab Al Ahli (UAE) MF: Jahanbakhsh - Feyenoord (Eredivisie) MF: Gholizadeh - Charleroi (Belgium) MF/FW: Taremi - Porto (Portuguese Primera) FW: Azmoun - Bayer Leverkusen (Bundesliga) Several players who ply their trade in Qatar, so that might help them there. Other than that, they're kind of scattered across Europe (Portugal, Croatia, the Eredivisie, Denmark, Belgium, and the German Bundesliga, just in the starting XI -- and wikipedia lists Ehsan Hajsafi, a leftback at AEK Athens, as their captain, so perhaps add Greece as well). According to Transfermarkt, their two most valuable players, by far, are their forwards Taremi (currently in his fourth season as a regular starter for Porto) and Azmoun (who just joined Bayer Leverkusen from Zenit), so I'll probably be paying more attention to those two going forward. Maybe Jahanbakhsh as well, if I'm ever tuning in to a Feyenoord game to watch Cole Bassett.
Did some analysis based on Elo Ratings, and our group, Group E, and group G are the toughest. I looked at average at Elo Ratings for each of the 4 pots in the draw, and then I calculated how much each individual country is above or below that average. Our Group B England +18pts above the Pot 1 average Iran +53pts above the Pot 3 average Wales +106pts above the Pot 4 average (assuming Wales qualifies) Note: US is the weakling in the group at -79pts below the Pot 2 average Group E Spain +18 Germany +65 Japan +29 Costa Rica +8 Group G Brazil +134 Switzerland +19 Serbia +78 Cameroon -66 The weaker groups are Group A (Qatar -360, Netherlands +37, Senegal -38, Ecuador +121) and Group H (Portugal -38, Uruguay +22, S.Korea +33, Ghana -156). Source: Eloratings.net
Including both English and Spanish language coverage, the most viewed soccer game ever in the US was the 2014 final which was viewed by 27.3 million. The most viewed US game ever was the 2015 Women’s final which was viewed by 26.9 million. The largest USMNT game was the group stage game against Portugal which did 25.5 million. I feel like this game is perfectly positioned to beat all of these.
Might it be best for us if the TBD turns out to be Scotland? My reasoning, and maybe I've got it all wrong, is that England and Scotland could spend so much concern on preparing to face each other that they'll worry less about getting ready to face us. This may also be somewhat true if the TBD turns out to be Wales, but England-Scotland is a much stronger rivalry than England-Wales. Over the years, one of our best weapons has been European and South American teams taking us too lightly (think Argentina '95, Portugal '02 and Spain '09). Might this help us again in this World Cup?
I don't think Southgate will take us lightly, though, oddly, Scotland (if it's them) just might. If they qualify, I have to think they're going to have all eyes on the England match. We've played Wales fairly recently. That was the game in which the MMA midfield made its debut.
For those who have Paramount+, Iran's qualifiers are all there (along with the rest of the Asian qualifiers). Might be a good idea to watch those to see how they play.
English press are loving their draw, thinking they got easy street.. Theyre gonna be a tough game, no doubt about that. Iran have a reputation of boring bud disciplined. Probably going to have to work to break it down. Ill defer thoughts on final opponent til its decided. Ukraine would be a tough opponent. The only one that really "scares" me here is England, and I think we can pull a tie there. If we are smart and respect our other two opponents, we should get resulst there too.